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War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

economist.com

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Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#201

Post by ZeroGravitas »

LatteLazy wrote: post #113
LemmyInThePub wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the UK, governments have stepped in to spend huge amounts subsidising energy (including gas), SPECIFICALLY AND EXPRESSLY to that people don't use any less No. The government stepped in because poor people (and many not so poor) could not afford to heat their homes over winter. It is (was) an emergency measure. The transition to green energy is well under way in the UK, regardless of temporary subsidies.

In the UK, they capped the price of energy per kWh. So they bailed out everyone, rich, poor and middle alike. And the more energy you used, the more support you got. So richer and more wasteful households got the MOST support. Saying "but the poor" while throwing money at the rich is pretty self-contradictory IMHO. If they'd at least made cash payments, even if it was the same per household, it would at least have in…

The energy cap was already in place in the UK. It contributed to the problems as the price of gas spiked.

It's a bad policy, but it's from the same government that paid people to eat out at restaurants during a viral pandemic, rather than a specific response to the war.

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#202

Post by runarberg »

krageon wrote: post #75
runarberg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My position is pretty much “yes” to all of these questions. Technology won’t progress at the rate needed to prevent the worst of the climate disaster, we need to sink way more money into research and production, not only to lower the cost, but to flat out dump infrastructure where it is needed (yes this means Germany should pay for solar plants and high voltage powerlines in Tanzania and not expect anything in return…

I don't disagree with you. I invite you to take a step back and stand in the shoes of someone who is exhibiting "carbon entitled behaviour". Do you think what you're saying here and your hardline stance on measures is going to get them to behave closer to your ideal? If not, how else are you going to make this happen? A lot of these people are politicians, so "just impose a higher tax" isn't a measure, it is a result…

While I actually believe capitalism is a huge contributor to the climate crisis I don't think it is solely responsible. I don't rule out that in an alternative communist universe governments would have acted equally recklessly and created a similar mess. I think that the only real idealism which could have prevented this is actual democracy where power isn't unevenly distributed among the wealthy class, and working class people would have an actual say in theyr governments climate policy (which could happen under communism but not guaranteed to). You actually hint at the democratic fault by accurately observing the role of politicians among the carbon elite and the carbon hogs.

As for revolutions. I don't think what I'm calling for is anywhere near to a revolution. We only have to reduce our meat consumption and our private car travels. We consumed less meat and drove less just a couple of decades ago—at the start of this mess. And today we have technology and—more imortantly—infrastructure to mitigate some of the pain of this reduction. Ideally we need to go far further but like you correctly said, we don't have time for that.

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#203

Post by mywittyname »

stef25 wrote: post #119
jacquesm wrote: post #55

Just one datapoint: this war has motivated me to make at least this house as independent of external energy sources as possible within the limits of physics and my budget. Gas prices have gone up so far and so fast that freestanding houses are listed for sale all over the place here. I've installed a relatively large amount of solar (nominally a bit over 10 KW) and I'm using that to offset the gas bill as long as we…

Good insulation (floor, ceiling and all walls) and properly fitting doors and windows already goes a long way. My apartment was renovated this way and when you turn the heating on when you come home the place is up to temp very quickly. A lot of houses have badly fitted windows & doors. Put your ear near it and clearly hear sounds coming in through little gaps, or even feel a small air current.

And heat exchangers!

Our homes need fresh air, and heat exchangers are an excellent way of maintaining a comfortable temperature while allowing for fresh air to circulate.

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#204

Post by mywittyname »

diordiderot wrote: post #169
cpursley wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy...

Thats depressing. Goodbye family farms

Family farms are inherently inefficient compared to what a large corporation can achieve. The costs of the machinery necessary to work the land efficiency requires some minimum acreage to become cost effective. Under that threshold, "family farmers" need to either rent equipment seasonally, own and maintain older equipment, or lease their land to those with equipment in exchange for a cut of the harvest.

It's been like this for a while, in the USA at least. I remember growing up it was common for people to lease out the land near their homes. Every season, you'd see combines driving down the roads from one patch of land to the other. People who farmed the land themselves typically did so for fun.

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#205

Post by ZeroGravitas »

A slight confounding factor here is that the green energy transition has been snowballing anyway.

Just as the bad news about climate often uses the "faster than expected" cliche, the renewables stories are often about updates to predictions because they are higher than previously estimated.

It would be easy to assign that increase to any big event that had just occurred. I do notice some changes that I attribute to the war, but it's only pushing at an open door. On a global scale how much does it compare to solar being the cheapest form of energy and other technical, industrial and political progress decades in the making? I'm not sure I see any direct link for EV success. More that all the big manufacturers (with Japan as a weird outlier) with government connections being on board at last and FUD being dispelled.

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#206

Post by fknorangesite »

LemmyInThePub wrote: post #135
stef25 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfathomable to me that people in the UK are skipping meals. If you buy rice & beans in bulk you can fill your belly for less than £1 I'm sure. Quick look on the Tesco website - bread: £0.39 £0.05/100g - chicken soup: £0.60 £0.15/100g - 1KG rice: £0.48 £0.48/kg - Baked beans: £0.50 £1.19/kg - Kidney beans: £0.59 £2.46/kg DR.WT - Tinned mackerel: £0.85 £0.97/100g DR.WT (sardines are half the price) - Eggs: £0.20…

> It's unfathomable to me that people in the UK are skipping meals. It is when you consider many people simply don't know how to cook simple, healthy food. Our schools no longer teach basic cookery (and many parents neglected to pass on the skills).

> and many parents neglected to pass on the skills

Or more likely were never taught those skills, either.

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#207

Post by [deleted] »

bootsmann wrote: post #200
user3939382 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Can you elaborate on why the Minsk agreement had to be enacted in the first place, i.e. what conflict the ceasefire was meant to cease? And how that conflict started? And who fought in that conflict? I'd really like to know.

[deleted]

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#208

Post by corbulo »

pjc50 wrote: post #89
haswell wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming one believes your argument, a more charitable conclusion is that some people may be misguided, and a reexamination of their stance may be warranted. Calling people idiots isn’t going to change people’s minds, and people hold bad opinions about things all the time for reasons that aren’t as simplistic as “they’re an idiot”.

There's an entire subsection of politics that's appeared, made entirely from the worst possible misreadings of sensible boring policy wonkery. The most recent example is people going bananas about "15-minute cities", as if being able to walk to the shops is some sort of communist plot.

People aren't afraid of the convenience. The 15 minute cities project comes with movement restrictions (in the name of climate) a la China in some areas like Oxford, I recall heated debate over that part.

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#209

Post by cosmic_gigachad »

pfdietz wrote: post #198
cosmic_gigachad wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define “in play”. The current administration campaigned on blocking all new exploratory leases, which they’ve done (and is now in a confusing legal battle). The current administration also blocked the Keystone pipeline. So no new ventures, and no cheap transportation from our partners to our north. Seems like the North American industry is being starved.

You seem to be deliberately confusing natural gas with petroleum.

[dead]

Re: War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

#210

Post by mmsimanga »

cosmic_gigachad wrote: post #194
yyyk wrote: post #151

The article's conclusion may be distasteful to some, but is in line with historical precedent. The 1973 Yom Kippur war and following oil embargo led to fuel economy standards, CFL research was started, search for alternate fuel sources and extraction method such as fracking... Many parallels to today, except "green" sources barely existed at the time.

War progresses many industries and humanity as a whole. “War! What is it good for?” by Ian Morrison is a good read.

I don't have any reference but I expand it from any war to any crisis. Ask for a new server at work and you are ignored for years until the old server crashes and cannot be recovered. Suddenly they will be funding for new server and approvals done within the hour. It is sad humans too often need a crisis to realise what is important and focus on it. No crisis no focus everyone just pulling in different directions.
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